The Lives You Gave Us
by BazMahtaz
Summary: Orphans of fortune find themselves together, and fighting for the family they never knew they had. Post DA:O.
1. Date of Birth

9:31 Dragon, the first of Harvestmere.

It had been nearly twenty hours since her first contraction and she was positively howling now that she was being told to push.

"Just a couple more big ones commander. It's crowning."

The elf pushed, a tremor running down her spine as she screamed her anger at feeling so helpless, screamed it downwards untill she was out of air and fell back in breathless sobs. How could this possibly put her in this much pain? She hadn't shown for months, hadn't even known she was pregnant until one of the healer mage recruits had accidentally brushed against her in passing and nearly dropped all his potions at her feet.

And then Anders had confirmed it. Dear Maker. Lyna Mahariel, Commander of the Grey in Ferelden, Hero of Ferelden, Arlessa of Amaranthine, slayer of the Archdemon, The Architect, and the Mother... Pregnant.

And the father? He would never know if she had anything to do with it.

She remembered that night, when he had taken her aside and told her he couldn't run away from his duty anymore. When he had left her feeling colder than she had ever felt, colder than when her clan had camped in the mountains during winter and their meager tents and aravels did nothing to keep the wind from biting viciously at their skin. Lyna had stood, On that day nearly nine months ago, watching his back as he returned to camp, and observed the numbness that had crept along her arms and into her fingers until she was sure she had no limbs at all.

"One more!"

She felt a rushing sensation at the next push and heard a small whimper, not a cry like she had expected. Just some tiny exhausted sound as Lyna drew in her own ragged breath and listened to the sounds of the healers fussing about her, urging her to push once more to flush out the last of the matter occupying her womb. Sighing, and feeling herself shudder with the ghosts of her pain, she almost turned them away when they finally handed her a small bundle of cloth and pink flesh.

"It was a hard fought battle, Commander, but you have yourself a little girl..."

She was beet red and bruised from the long birthing process, her tiny face twisted in something that looked like defiance, hands squeezed into tiny fists to match. And when she opened her eyes Lyna felt her heart jump into her throat.

She had never been a mother before, and she did not know what to expect from new born babies, but she knew that those eyes...

A hand fell on her shoulder and Lyna's voice cracked, clutching her small delicate daughter to her.

"There has never been a child with two grey warden parents before... We have to expect there to be some side effects."

Those big, silvery eyes blinked at her. Looking exactly like his. Those big sweet things that had corroded her iron exterior the first day she had met him echoed in mercury hues in his child, and having just the same effect... It made her want to weep. The exhaustion had weakened her to the point that she nearly did. But the Commander of the Grey didn't cry in front of those she gave orders to on a daily basis.

What she did once the medical staff departed and she was finally left alone with her child, though? Well, that was her buisness.


	2. Daughter

Aislin had spent the better part of her day attempting to immitate her mother's scowl, seemingly in an attempt to harness it's power. She had gotten pretty close -for a six year old anyway- until the reason for the commander's mood came riding through the gates of Vigil's Keep on a white horse and scowling was redefined in the dictionary with a sketch of Lyna next to it.

Nathaniel took it as a cue to pick up the protesting child and move her where the visitor couldn't see her but where the last son of the Howe family could keep an eye on the situation, settling on the stables and walking the little girl to their manure and wet-dog scented hiding place.

Lyna had given eveyone with access to her daughter strict instructions to never, ever let her be seen by the King of Ferelden. And while Nathaniel has hardpressed to hide things from his Sovereign, he cared enough about the little brat and her battering ram of a mother to not go against the order.

Maybe a little too much...

"My liege." The tone was forced and the bow was curt.

"Lyna, you don't need to be so formal."

"Don't I? Isn't there some kind of protocol for this?"

Alistair dismounted, he absolutely dwarfed the woman across from him. Looking at the commander with a fixed jaw, and handed the reins of his horse to a stable boy.

"Nate, Who's that?" The six year old was peering through a gap in the boards and pointing awkwardly at the big man who stood so easily straight in front of her mother.

"The King." He tugged her silvery blond pony tail gently making her shoot one of those carefully practiced scowls at him.

"Can I say aneth'ara?"

"No."

"Why?" She whined so expertly.

"Because Momma said so." He picked her up again, careful not to hold her too high above the window sill. Of all things Aislin was, noticeable was a big one. Her skin was tanned a pale gold that contrasted with the shock of light hair and etheral silver eyes, and there was always the ears, some sort of half way between elven and human, they were only slightly pointed. Aislin was also loud, loud enough that her mother's acute hearing had already picked up her voice. The commander shot a quick look towoard the stables.

"Momma said he's a bastard."

Nathaiel nearly choked. He was going to have to ask Lyna to be a little more discreet during her drunken rants.

"You know that's a bad word, and Momma won't be happy if you keep saying it, Ais."

She grumbled and started plucking at the studs on his leather, sighing dramatically. "Nate, You're boring." He put her down, more to save his uniform than anything, Aislin had some fairly destructive tendancies when she wasn't well enough distracted.

"And you're going after her? Are you mad?"

They both jumped, former noble and daughter of the grey, looking back towoard the courtyard where Lyna and the King were now talking rather heatedly.

"I have to know Alistair! She saved us. Both of us. and If she's out there hurt or dead or just... in trouble... She was my best friend!"

"She told us not to follow her. She said she never wanted us to see the child, and I agree. I don't want to know what I made that night. With her."

Lyna had her fists balled and her heels dug into the soil beneath her. her face looked... wet.

"I do. Alistair."

Nathaniel felt his chest clench when she turned her head ever so slightly towoard the stables, seeing her daughter's head peeked above the window sill and watching, in plain view.

Shit.

He reached for Aislin but the half elf was too fast, and too determined. In one quick move she had vaulted over the low wall and started running to her mother as fast as her small feet could carry her. Skidding to a halt in front of her mother and taking up a practiced defensive stance with both fists in the air.

The king raised an eyebrow, the odd little child looking up with him with narrowed mercury eyes and silvery hair.

"I don't care if you're a king. You don't get to make my momma cry!"

And then the bottom fell out, Alistairs mouth opened as if to say something and his eyes widened. A realization dawning on his face along with something like sadness.

"Aislin! Go!" Lyna growled, a finger pointing towoard Vigil's Keep.

The girl didn't even spare her mother a look. So determined to act in her defense. "Nobody makes momma cry! She's killed an archdemon! and-" Her little fists were shaking, her teeth bared.

Like a mother wolf, Lyna snagged her daughter by the back of her dress and dragged her behind her.

The silence between the King and Commander stretched long, as he seemingly tried to make sense of what he was seeing, and she fixed him with a steely glare at an intensity that Nathaniel hadn't seen her use in years.

"Is she-"

"No." Lyna barked. "She's not yours."

His face, the set of his jaw, the way his eyes fell on the small girl still looking at him like he was the scum of the earth, said exactly how much he didn't believe her.

He looked back to Lyna, frowning deeply, looking like he now felt every inch of the loss he had endured over the past half decade.

Lyna motioned for Nathaniel, and the rogue jumped. Jogging from where he had been stuck, motionless with shock, just outside the stables to grab the angry child from her mother's grip.

"Take her to her quarters. I'll be up shortly."

He nodded and turned on his heel, walking swiftly towoard the keep. but not fast enough to stop Aislin from shouting over his shoulder at the ruler of all Ferelden:

"Bastard!"


	3. A Duet in Time

Running flat out over the hard ground the young woman was grinning wildly, daggers in each hand and poised at a deadly angle as she launched herself off the cliff's edge with a howl and landed on the unsuspecting ogre with a loud _slerk_ of both blades plunging into the meat of it's chest.

The darkspawn giant began howling in rage and clawing for the scource of its pain, narrowly missing her as gravity took her weight and tore two long lacerations down to it's abdominal muscles with a sickening popping sound of tearing flesh, and then further when she braced her legs and pushed herself the rest of the way down it's front. The massive body tipped forward with a shriek, and she launched herself back, jogging backwards past the impact zone before running forward again and over the ogre's bare back to assault the next wave of Hurlocks in a cloud of black smoke and deadly blades.

One, two, four, six down. She was taking them two at a time, cutting throats and disemboweling some. Killing darkspawn felt like creating art sometimes...

Dirty, messy, violent, art.

Sighing as the last one landed in a sputtering heap she sheathed her blades at her hips and dusted off her leathers before turning.

The hurlock, missing one arm, was nearly on top of her, running full out, silent from it's shallowly cut throat. How in the name of Andraste had she not sensed it! And she reached for her blades again, a flurry of shocked and adrenaline fueled motion, grasping the handle, her palm slick with darkspawn ichor and slipping over the banded grips made to prevent such a thing from happening.

It was upon her, its blade missing her by an inch and without warning, an arrow pierced it's skull and sent it to the ground once more.

She looked up, the dark haired man, middle aged, with a bored look on his face replacing his longbow at his back and crossing his arms as he looked down at her from the same cliff she had just lept from.

"Brutal. Fast. But your overconfidence makes you careless." He called.

Aislin laughed breathlessly, stepping lightly as she approached the cliff face, grabbing a toe hold and vaulting herself up the rocky vertical quickly, the grit of the sand and dust on the stone sticking to her bloody palms.

"Learned from the best Natey." She winked, making him roll his eyes and turn back towoard the road.

The raids had become infrequent over the years, usually only occuring in villages close to the wilds, like the one the two Grey Wardens were staying in now. Lothering, it was called, rebuilt from the blight that had destroyed it eighteen years earlier. Now, it was a bustling little town again with a road that passed through it from Ostagar that connected it to the North, and Denerim. It was quite lovely actually, with its tiny homes and farms. And the comfortable little inn that was serving as their temporary base while they cleared out the last of the darkspawn from the wilds nearby. Aislin sensed only stragglers now, retreating back towoard the frozen wastes to the South.

"So. Back to Amaranthine tomorrow I hope?" She knew he would groan at that. She had been on about it for a week now. And Nathaniel knew exactly why.

The first of Harvestmere was approaching, and at Eighteen years this meant Aislin was the age of majority; old enough to be made an official Grey Warden in title instead of just in blood. Something she had waited years for and made more than enough fuss about.

"Not until we're sure. But... Yes it looks like we'll be leaving tomorrow."

"Fuckin' score."

"Ais. Language."

"Fine, dad."

She always said is sarcastically, but it was a heck of a lot more suitable than most people imagined. The man had practically raised her since her Mother had dissapeared, with the help of the other Wardens still loyal to her mother she had grown up very much a tomboy, with a mouth like a sailor thanks to Oghren, and a healthy respect for blade and bow thanks to Nathaniel.

Not that it was all good, of course. Aislin admitted to herself that a lack of much female companionship was largely responsible for her complete idiodicy about her own body, puberty had been a completely painful experience that had sent her to the infirmary in blind panic on several occasions.

None the less, she was pleased with her lot. Or thought she was at least. There were always days filled with belated teenage angst and the obligatory Grey Warden nightmares that it seemed were more potent during periods of raging hormonal distress.

But it had been three years since her last episode. So no use worrying about that.

She hoped.

"Any guesses on what you're getting?"

"Cake."

"I meant to unwrap."

"Gyeeh.." She drew a blank, she hadn't asked for anything. It hadn't seemed like an adult thing to do. "Prostitute?"

Nathaniel snorted, and managed to look mortified and amused at the same time "No. Andraste's grace kid, I'm not going to buy you a prostitute."

She grinned like a cheshire cat. Honestly, she probably wouldn't be too pleased with that sort of gift. She ignored men.

Most men.

Some men were kind of...

Attractive.

And usually they were twice her age...

"I don't like that look."

She jumped, realised she had been grinning stupidly at the trees.

"I was stuck on "unwrapping""

* * *

><p>He loathed cities. They smelled of smoke, and stone, and people. None of which he was fond of. He, like the woman who had raised him, had always preferred the outdoors. Trees, dirt, and animals.<p>

Why was he even here?

He looked towoards the tower at the other end of the city, looming over the rest like a watchful sentinel, feeling all the more paranoid.

Young, a mage, and not in the least used to cities, or people. He felt his mask of calm tense into something angry. He was here because he had no choice in the matter. _She_ had dissappeared and the only clue he had as to her whereabouts was here. Vigils keep.

"Hey! One side buck!" Morgan twitched, stepping out of the road and out of the way of a rather miffed looking old man with a cart full of something dead and pungent.

The smell...

He wanted to groan outloud. But that would just mean he would have to breathe in again afterwards, inviting even more of that stench into his overworked nostrils.

He, instead, plucked up what small amount of courage he had left, and started towoard the keep.

And was promptly mugged.

By some little hellion with red hair.

"HEY!"

"YOU!" A woman in light armor was on the kid before Morgan could even move. Picking the squirming child up by the neck of his shirt from her seat atop her horse.

The visor of her helmet was flipped up and though he couldn't see inside from his angle, Morgan imagined the brat was looking into the pits of hell with the reaction he gave.

"What in the _fuck_ did I tell you!"

"Don't steal."

"Don't **fucking** steal. It pisses me off!"

She yanked the meager coin purse from his hands, guiding the animal over to Morgan. Kid in one gauntletted hand, purse in the other.

"Harold. Apologize."

"s-sorry ser."

She dropped him, and he stumbled, and promptly ran in the opposite direction.

"Sorry about him. The little shit-stains a work in progress." She handed Morgan his money, and he looked up to see a young face, big gray eyes amidst otherwise small features and framed in dove white hair. All smiles despite the rather colourful language.

"Thank you." He didn't smile. Morgan didn't smile. Ever.

"Where are you headed?"

That was unexpected. "Why?"

"Because you're obviously not from around here, and I don't trust that little nug-humper to not come back and try you again." She tossed a thumb behind her shoulder at nothing. Or was she pointing at that kid? Harold? Probably. Morgan didn't understand all of this... city behaviour.

He looked towoard the keep, "There."

"Oh! Do you have an audience?"

Audience? An appointment. "No."

"Ah. You see, you have to. These days. Cyrus is kind of an asshole like that. Very... Orlesian." She grimaced. Her face was so expressive. And why? Did everyone have to know how she was feeling at any given moment? Was that a thing people in cities did?

"Ais! We have somewhere to be!"

She looked over her shoulder at the other armored figure on horseback. One he hadn't noticed before. This one was without a helmet, a bit older, with dark hair, graying around the temples, and a spot of facial hair just under his lip. The expressive girl waved, holding up a finger.

"I might be able to negotiate something. If it's important."

"It is."

She raised an eyebrow, aparantly expecting him to say something else.

He realised that if he wanted to get in, and get any help at all, he was going to have to be somewhat accomodating to these people's collective phychosis.

"My mother went missing. I think she may have come here."

She frowned and nodded. Expressive. "I'll do my best to get you in. I know he has an opening this evening, so I'll see what kind of favors I can pull. In the mean time, there's a quiet pub near the keep I can send for you in."

For the second time "Thank you."

She tipped her chin. "Aislin Mahariel of the Grey Wardens at your service m'ser."

Why did that sound farmiliar?

"Morgan."

Why did he do that?

Right. Accomodating.

* * *

><p>Her heel was tapping silently on the stone tiles beneath the long desk, eyes fixed but not focused on the face of Cyrus DuCharme, Ferelden's commander of the Grey.<p>

Those meetings were not exactly the highlight of her young life. Often focused on patrols, darkspawn activity, and communications with Weisshaupt. It was rare that anything interesting ever came up, and despite the fact that she was not yet considered a Grey Warden, she was still required to attend.

Shifting her gaze slightly aross the Hall, she saw that Nathaniel was feeling quite the same as she was. His chin resting in his hand and his eyes half closed. It had been a long trip home for them both, and before they could even concieve of a bath, food, or sleep, they had paperwork, a debriefing, and Aislin had made an apointment for the odd looking young man from town.

He would have had his meeting earlier in the evening.

Her silvery eyes flicked back towoard Cyrus, the blond young man with a thin face and a permanent frown. He had taken over command shortly after her own mother's dissapearance. Sent from the Grey Wardens in Orlais. He was not unkind, but it was clear that he did not favour Aislin and her special circumstances. He, along with many other Wardens had always regarded her with distain, a child growing up among men and women who made their lives by hunting creatures who's blood coursed through their veins. A girl who had undergone no joining ritual and who could still use the gift of her taint with more ferocity than they often could.

It was idiotic of them. Aislin did not deserve their contempt for something she had no control over.

She pushed her frustration aside. It liked to lurk around her insides on days like this.

In short, the assembly was dismissed and her tapping foot stilled and pushed her up. She was ready to jog to the mess hall and caught Nathaniel's eye too late. He had already been called over to Cyrus.

Dammit. She hated eating alone. She started towoard the door.

"Not so quickly, Mahariel, I need a word with you as well."

That accent had gone from quaint to grating faster than her stomach could muster a traitorous enough growl, and she spun on her heel.

"Yes, Commander?"

The Orlesian motionned to his office door behind the raised dais of the throne.

It was a sparsely decorated space with only the braisiers on the walls and a wooden carving beind the desk of soaring griffons and charging mabaris. The piece had been a gift to the Wardens sometime when Aislin was still very young, and there were several similar pieces by the same artist throughout the keep.

Cyrus waved his hand at the pair of stiffbacked wooden chairs on the visitor's side of his desk as he rested in his own chair. Something lightly padded for long hours surrounded by paperwork.

"You sent me a young man today by the name of Morgan. He was asking after his mother."

Shit. Did the bastard turn out to be up to no good after all? She knew he seemed a bit wierd, but she attributed that to him just being a country boy. Well, now she'd stepped in it. Bad enough she was in trouble, she had managed to drag Nathaniel into it as well. Her "guardian" until tomorrow evening, he would be deemed responsible for her slip.

"Whatever he did, I'm sorry commander. He seemed well meaning." She pressed her mouth into a nervous line, ankles crossing beneath her as Cyrus fixed her with his unchanging stare.

"Actually, he was perfectly polite. But his reason for coming here had more to do with you than he may have originally believed." He ran a finger over the stubble on his chin and leaned back in his chair, still staring.

"Commander, my apologies, but I think the both of us would appreciate it if you got to the point." Nathaniel, always blunt, always professional. Aislin never could have said something so pointed to Cyrus if she had been a true Warden for fourty years.

The Orlesian raised an eyebrow but nodded.

"Morgan's mother dissapeared some time ago from a very remote area in the Palacene forest. They had been living with another woman at the time, and when his mother dissapeared, so did she. Morgan travelled this far under the assumption that she had returned to her home, and to her daughter."

Aislin stood.

"No."

Absolutely impossible!

"My mother is dead!" She stepped backwards, nearly falling over her chair. Eyes wide and arms poised over daggers that she had long since removed from their home at her sides.

"Ais-"

"She's dead! Lyna is dead!" Her breath left her and she bumped into the stone wall at her back.

_"Aislin! Breathe!"_

She had made her peace with this! Why was she being reminded of it now? She had been there, the pyre that had been lit in her mother's honour when she had turned ten years old and the letters had stopped coming. Cried by the seedling pine planted according to Lyna's Dalish heritage. She had heard her demise had been as a victim of the mage's rebellion or lost to the sea, or maybe she gone to her calling.

Regardless of the method, somehow, her mother had been lost to her. And now they were trying to tell her that everything she had grown into her adulthood believing was a lie. That the woman who had birthed her, a half-elf with too much taint in her blood and no father, still lived.

Aislin blacked out laughing.

* * *

><p>G'day everyone!<p>

Firstly, if you're reading this let me just thank you oh so very much for doing so. It's nice to know I'm not alone in my insanity.

I did make a few minor adjustments to the canon timeline, they should be obvious to anyone who looks these things up. I will make note of them in the chapters they are obvious.

In this chapter (and those before it) instead of searching for Morrigan in 9:32 Dragon, she leaves in 9:36 Dragon, and is pronounced dead in 9:40 Dragon (The same year as Varric is being interrogated by Cassandra Pentaghast in Dragon Age 2). The current year is 9:48 Dragon, and so it has been nineteen years since the events beginning in Dragon Age Origins began, and ten since the ending of Dragon Age 2. Aislin is eighteen (well, almost. Next chapter!).

I'm doing the best to nerd my way through this. I'm hoping you all get a kick out of it and please review! I love me some constructive criticism!

Hope to hear from you soon :)


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